Four straight losses and a 21-inning scoreless streak, then Wheeler's gem: the Phillies beat the Rays 7-3 to clinch the final NL wild card.

Four losses in a row. Three runs in those four games. A 12-1 embarrassment on Saturday. Then, in the 162nd game, the Phillies remembered who they were. Philadelphia beat Tampa Bay 7-3 on Sunday, Sept. 27, to clinch the final National League wild-card berth and a fifth straight trip to the playoffs, the Associated Press reports via ABC News. The Phillies had a 6 1/2-game lead over Arizona for the third wild card on Sept. 1, then went into a tailspin that spurred memories of 1964, when the Phillies lost 10 straight games to blow a 6 1/2-game lead and the NL pennant. They needed an unearned run on Saturday just to snap a 21-inning scoreless streak. Sunday, the bats woke up. Bryson Stott, batting cleanup for only the seventh time in his career, doubled home Kyle Schwarber in the first inning. Schwarber's two-run double in the second made it 4-0, and J.T. Realmuto, who had slogged through 34 straight hitless at-bats, ripped an RBI double of his own. Bryce Harper lined a solo shot into the first row of the right-field seats, and Edmundo Sosa's two-run homer made it 7-1 in the seventh. Zack Wheeler allowed one run over six innings on 97 pitches for his 14th win, and Jhoan Duran struck out Nick Fortes to seal it. "We didn't play the best baseball we could in September," Harper said. "Should we have clinched two weeks ago? Probably, right? But we didn't." Managing partner and CEO John Middleton called the final week "kind of a living hell in slow motion." Waiting had a price. Game 1 of the best-of-three Wild Card Series is Tuesday in Atlanta, and the Phillies will almost surely have to beat the NL East champion Braves without a start from Wheeler. Atlanta won the season series 9-4. Coach's closing line: a slump doesn't end with a speech. It ends when a few guys square one up in a row, and everybody else remembers how.